Thursday, December 11, 2014

“…she is very much to the TASTE of every body” Emma Woodhouse’s immodest (and appalling) views on Miss Bates, poverty & food

..and then rereading it quickly a
short while later, I realized what had been tugging at the edges of my
memory---I recalled that there was something very Swiftian about this
particular satirical construction by JA—the linkage of Mr. Woodhouse’s constant
exclamations about other people beginning with “Poor…” with his constant worried
ejaculations about the unhealthfulness of people eating “too much” or “too RICH”
(interesting pun there!) food--it was strikingly reminiscent of Swift’s “Modest
Proposal” for dealing with hunger in dirt-poor Ireland—the parents should just eat
their babies, and (so to speak) kill two birds with one stone!

I had first discussed that veiled
allusion in Emma with Cathy Lamb way
back in 2006 (when I was first looking at the Swift subtext in Mansfield Park), and then a year ago Diane
independently raised the very same point
to me.

So clearly, Diane, your point about
the darkness of Mr. Woodhouse’s concerns about people eating too much was informed
by your earlier awareness, and your revisiting it now has prompted me to dive
even deeper into this rich stew of allusion, and I think you will really like
the way it all tastes in the end!;)

To
start, this passage from Wikipedia makes it crystal clear that Mr. Woodhouse
has been reading Swift on the sly:

“Swift
goes to great lengths to support his argument, including a list of possible
preparation styles for the children, and calculations showing the financial
benefits of his suggestion….These lampoons include appealing to the authority
of "a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London" and
"the famous Psalmanazar, a native of the island Formosa" (who had
already confessed to not being from Formosa in 1706)….the reader is
unprepared for the surprise of Swift's solution when he states, "A young
healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and
wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt
that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout."

In addition to all the discussion in
Emma of the relative merits of
baking, boiling, roasting in regard to the nourishingness and wholesomeness of
food so prepared, we should also in particular consider the Swiftian allusion
hidden in Miss Bates saying

“there was a delicate FRICASEE of sweetbread and some
aspaRAGUs brought in at first, and good Mr. Woodhouse, not thinking the aspaRAGUs
quite boiled enough, sent it all out again.”

I.e., Swift’s “fricaseee, or a
ragout” becomes “fricassee of sweetbread and some aspa-ragout..” in JA’s Monty
Pythonesque transformational wordplay! But where Swift’s satire was savagely
overt, visible to even the most obtuse reader, JA’s pen was a satirical rapier,
it pierced its victim almost subliminally, disguised as a fond touch—and so,
undiscovered for nearly 2 centuries.

And so, in that promising vein, I
decided to dive back into the text of Emma
and search for some further textual clues corroborating that Swiftian food
satire that Diane re-raised, and I amplified in my previous post.

And, sure enough, I found it right
away, right under my own nose. I.e., when I searched for the word “poverty” in
the text of Emma, guess where I found
the single usage thereof in the entire novel?Right there in that same Chapter 10, when Emma visits the poor sick
family!!

And that’s when I realized that the
entirety of Chapter 10 can profitably be read exclusively from the angle of
this Swiftian satire on the rich’s response to widespread poverty around them.
I will now quickly sketch the rest of this satire with sequential quotations
therefrom (although, for maximum satirical effect, you really should reread the
whole chapter with that satire in mind).

“Though now the middle of December,
there had yet been no weather to prevent the young ladies from tolerably
regular exercise; and on the morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a
poor sick family, who lived a little way out of Highbury.”

So, the question arises, what form
will Emma’s charity take? It does not promise well, however, that what is on
Emma’s mind is not theillness of the
family or the charity Emma will provide, but that the outing will be good
exercise for her and Harriet to take a walk a little way out of Highbury during
a rare break in harsh winter weather.

“Their road to this detached cottage
was down Vicarage Lane, a lane leading at right angles from the broad, though
irregular, main street of the place; and, as may be inferred, containing the
blessed abode of Mr. Elton.”

Hmm…so is it just a coincidence that
Emma decides to take that walk that day with Harriet, on a route that just happens
to go right past the Vicarage? Of course not! As Knightley would have said to
Emma had he known about it, “You made the charity visit precisely so that you’d
have an excuse to walk Harriet by the Vicarage.”

“A few inferior dwellings were first
to be passed, and then, about a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the
Vicarage, an old and not very good house, almost as close to the road as it
could be. It had no advantage of situation; but had been very much smartened up
by the present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility
of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing eyes.”

Aside from the nauseating snobbery
of “inferior dwellings” (you can imagine Emma holding her nose as they passed
those unfortunate hovels), we now see that Emma has indeed planned this as an “accidental”
meeting between Harriet and Elton.

"I do not often walk this way now,"
said Emma, as they proceeded, "but then there will be an
inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately acquainted with all the
hedges, gates, pools and pollards of this part of Highbury."

And, again, we have Emma in effect confirming
that she has probably NEVER paid a charitable visit to that poor sick family in
her entire life!

And then we have a conversation between
Harriet and Emma in which Harriet goads Emma into revealing why Emma feels herself
above the need to marry:

"But still, you will be an old
maid! and that's so dreadful!"

"Never mind, Harriet, I shall
not be a poor old maid; and it is POVERTY ONLY makes celibacy contemptible to a
generous public! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a
ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a
single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible
and pleasant as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so much against
the candour and common sense of the world as appears at first; for a very
narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those
who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very
inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This does not apply,
however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me;
but, in general, she is very much to the taste of every body, though single and
though poor. Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind: I really believe,
if she had only a shilling in the world, she would be very likely to give away
sixpence of it; and nobody is afraid of her: that is a great charm."

You won’t often see “it is poverty
only makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public!” in a list of favorite
quotations from JA’s novels, because it is so disgusting and shocking an example
of Emma’s attitude toward those less fortunately born than she. That she carves
out Miss Bates as a single exception to her universal rule does not mitigate
the horror of that general rule, it merely makes Emma’s blindness to her father’s
“starvation diet” that much more poignant.

But then Jane Austen would surely laugh
at my noticing the savage Swifitan irony of Emma saying the following about
Miss Bates:

“…she is very much to the TASTE of
every body…”

I mean, really!!!-would that be Filet
of Miss Bates boiled, baked or in a ragout?;)

But let’s return for the rest of
Chapter 10. After Emma completes her lecture about wealth and women, we read:

“They were now approaching the
cottage, and all idle topics were superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and
the distresses of the poor were as sure of relief from her personal attention
and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood
their ways, could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no
romantic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had
done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and always
gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will. In the present
instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit…”

So here we have Emma congratulating
herself repeatedly for her compassion, understanding, empathy, and assistance-although
it is still not clear to the reader what form Emma’s charity will take, beyond
a few platitudes spoken before quickly exiting the sickroom.

“…and after remaining there as long
as she could give comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an
impression of the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,

"These are the sights, Harriet,
to do one good. How trifling they make every thing else appear!—I feel now as
if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day;
and yet, who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind?"

"Very true," said Harriet.
"Poor creatures! one can think of nothing else."

"And really, I do not think the
impression will soon be over," said Emma, as she crossed the low hedge,
and tottering footstep which ended the narrow, slippery path through the
cottage garden, and brought them into the lane again. "I do not think it will,"
stopping to look once more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and
recall the still greater within.

"Oh! dear, no," said her
companion.

They walked on. The lane made a
slight bend; and when that bend was passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight…”

And there, again, is Emma immediately
upon catching sight of Elton undoing her own pathetically brief attempt at
keeping her mind on the poor sick people. And we still wonder, what charity did/will Emma perform?

"Ah!
Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good thoughts.
Well, (smiling,) I hope it may be allowed that if compassion has produced
exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that is truly important.
If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them, the rest is
empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves."

Harriet could just answer, "Oh!
dear, yes," before the gentleman joined them. The wants and sufferings of
the poor family, however, were the first subject on meeting. He had been going
to call on them. His visit he would now defer; but they had a very interesting
parley about what could be done and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back
to accompany them.

"To fall in with each other on
such an errand as this," thought Emma; "to meet in a charitable
scheme; this will bring a great increase of love on each side. I should not
wonder if it were to bring on the declaration. It must, if I were not here. I
wish I were anywhere else."

So more talk about compassion and
suffering, but all just for show. And STILL nothing about Emma’s actual
charitable acts. And then begins the farce of the faux broken shoelace—and look
what’s buried in that same passage:.

“..by the time she judged it
reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the comfort of farther delay in
her power, being overtaken by a child from the cottage, setting out, according
to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side
of this child, and talk to and question her, was the most natural thing in the
world, or would have been the most natural, had she been acting just then
without design; and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead,
without any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however, involuntarily:
the child's pace was quick, and theirs rather slow; and she was the more
concerned at it, from their being evidently in a conversation which interested
them. Mr. Elton was speaking with animation, Harriet listening with a very
pleased attention; and Emma, having sent the child on, was beginning to think
how she might draw back a little more, when they both looked around, and she
was obliged to join them.”

So, the sum total of Emma’s
generosity to the poor sick family was to give them however much broth a (presumably
a small, undernourished) child from the cottage would be able to carry in some
sort of jug all the way to Hartfield and back—so, not even any food, but broth
(“thin gruel” indeed!), and a pitifully small amount, transported on foot with
backbreaking labor by a child, instead of Emma sending over some substantial
edibles in a cart (don’t you think James and the horses could be spared?) that
might actually save the lives of the sick and undernourished members of that
family.

And the worst and cruelest of Emma’s
callousness is that the fact that “the child’s pace was quick” ticks Emma off,
because the kid keeps undermining Emma’s little scheme of lagging back to give
Elton a chance to woo Harriet—when the fast pace of the child suggests to the
sensitive reader that the child is famished and/or must get back to attend to
some serious duties at the cottage. So Emma’s deliberate slowing down has actually
been forcing the child to go much slower than (s)he wants to!

Etc etc etc—the bottom line is
clear-Chapter 10 is another crucial component of the Swiftian satire of Emma- and how blind Maggie Lane was to
recognize the central importance of food in Emma,
and yet have absolutely no clue that it might be the darkest form of social
satire.

And by the way, if you want a number
of other sharp laughs, search the word “taste” in Emma with Swift’s “Modest
Proposal” in mind, and you won’t be disappointed, they are everywhere!

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Thank you, Mary!

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About Me

I'm a 65 year old independent scholar (still) working on a book project about the SHADOW STORIES of Jane Austen's novels (and Shakespeare's plays). I first read Austen in 1995, an American male real estate lawyer, i.e., a Janeite outsider. I therefore never "learned" that there was no secret subtext in her novels. All I did was to closely read and reread her novels, while participating in stimulating online group readings. Then, in 2002, I whimsically wondered whether Willoughby stalked Marianne Dashwood and staged their “accidental” meeting. I retraced his steps, followed the textual “bread crumbs”, and verified my hunch. I've since made numerous similar discoveries about offstage scheming by various characters. In hindsight, it was my luck not only to be a lawyer, but also a lifelong solver of NY Times and other difficult American crossword puzzles. These both trained me to spot complex patterns based on fragmentary data, to interpret cryptic clues of all kinds, and, above all, not to give up until I’ve completed the puzzle--and literary sleuthing Jane Austen's novels (and Shakespeare's plays) is, bar none, the best puzzle solving in the world!